The subject of immortality has been suggested.
Life is the expression of composition; and death, the expression of
decomposition. In the world or kingdom of the minerals certain materials
or elemental substances exist. When through the law of creation they enter
into composition, a being or organism comes into existence. For example,
certain material atoms are brought together, and man is the result. When
this composition is destroyed and disintegrated, decomposition takes
place; this is mortality, or death. When certain elements are composed, an
animal comes into being. When these elements are scattered or decomposed,
this is called the death of the animal. Again, certain atoms are bound
together by chemical affinity; a composition called a flower appears. When
these atoms are dispersed and the composition they have formed is
disintegrated, the flower has come to its end; it is dead. Therefore, it
is evident that life is the expression of composition, and mortality, or
death, is equivalent to decomposition. As the spirit of man is not
composed of material elements, it is not subject to decomposition and,
therefore, has no death. It is self-evident that the human spirit is
simple, single and not composed in order that it may come to immortality,
and it is a philosophical axiom that the individual or indivisible atom is
indestructible. At most, it passes through a process of construction and
reconstruction. For example, these individual atoms are brought together
in a composition, and through this composition a given organism--such as a
man, an animal or a plant--is created. When this composition is decomposed,
that created organism is brought to an end, but the component atoms are
not annihilated; they continue to exist because they are single,
individual and not composed. Therefore, it may be said that these
individual atoms are eternal. Likewise, the human spirit, inasmuch as it
is not composed of individual elements or atoms--as it is sanctified above
these elements--is eternal. This is a self-evident proof of its
immortality.
Second, consider the world of dreams, wherein the body of man is
immovable, seemingly dead, not subject to sensation; the eyes do not see,
the ears do not hear nor the tongue speak. But the spirit of man is not
asleep; it sees, hears, moves, perceives and discovers realities.
Therefore, it is evident that the spirit of man is not affected by the
change or condition of the body. Even though the material body should die,
the spirit continues eternally alive, just as it exists and functions in
the inert body in the realm of dreams. That is to say, the spirit is
immortal and will continue its existence after the destruction of the
body.
Third, the human body has one form. In its composition it has been
transferred from one form to another but never possesses two forms at the
same time. For example, it has existed in the elemental substances of the
mineral kingdom. From the mineral kingdom it has traversed the vegetable
kingdom and its constituent substances; from the vegetable kingdom it has
risen by evolution into the kingdom of the animal and from thence attained
the kingdom of man. After its disintegration and decomposition it will
return again to the mineral kingdom, leaving its human form and taking a
new form unto itself. During these progressions one form succeeds another,
but at no time does the body possess more than one.
The spirit of man, however, can manifest itself in all forms at the same
time. For example, we say that a material body is either square or
spherical, triangular or hexagonal. While it is triangular, it cannot be
square; and while it is square, it is not triangular. Similarly, it cannot
be spherical and hexagonal at the same time. These various forms or shapes
cannot be manifest at the same instant in one material object. Therefore,
the form of the physical body of man must be destroyed and abandoned
before it can assume or take unto itself another. Mortality, therefore,
means transference from one form to another--that is, transference from the
human kingdom to the kingdom of the mineral. When the physical man is
dead, he will return to dust; and this transference is equivalent to
nonexistence. But the human spirit in itself contains all these forms,
shapes and figures. It is not possible to break or destroy one form so
that it may transfer itself into another. As an evidence of this, at the
present moment in the human spirit you have the shape of a square and the
figure of a triangle. Simultaneously also you can conceive a hexagonal
form. All these can be conceived at the same moment in the human spirit,
and not one of them needs to be destroyed or broken in order that the
spirit of man may be transferred to another. There is no annihilation, no
destruction; therefore, the human spirit is immortal because it is not
transferred from one body into another body.
Consider another proof: Every cause is followed by an effect and vice
versa; there could be no effect without a cause preceding it. Sight is an
effect; there is no doubt that behind that effect there is a cause. When
we hear a discourse, there is a speaker. We could not hear words unless
they proceeded from the tongue of a speaker. Motion without a mover or
cause of motion is inconceivable. Jesus Christ lived two thousand years
ago. Today we behold His manifest signs; His light is shining; His
sovereignty is established; His traces are apparent; His bounties are
effulgent. Can we say that Christ did not exist? We can absolutely
conclude that Christ existed and that from Him these traces proceeded.
Still another proof: The body of man becomes lean or fat; it is afflicted
with disease, suffers mutilation; perhaps the eyes become blind, the ears
deaf; but none of these imperfections and failings afflict or affect the
spirit. The spirit of man remains in the same condition, unchanged. A man
is blinded, but his spirit continues the same. He loses his hearing, his
hand is cut off, his foot amputated; but his spirit remains the same. He
becomes lethargic, he is afflicted with apoplexy; but there is no
difference, change or alteration in his spirit. This is proof that death
is only destruction of the body, while the spirit remains immortal,
eternal.
Again, all phenomena of the material world are subject to mortality and
death, but the immortal spirit does not belong to the phenomenal world; it
is holy and sanctified above material existence. If the spirit of man
belonged to the elemental existence, the eye could see it, the ear hear
it, the hand touch. As long as these five senses cannot perceive it, the
proof is unquestioned that it does not belong to the elemental world and,
therefore, is beyond death or mortality, which are inseparable from that
material realm of existence. If being is not subject to the limitation of
material life, it is not subject to mortality.
There are many other proofs of the immortality of the spirit of man. These
are but a few of them. Salutations!
2 September 1912
Talk at Home of Mr. and Mrs. William Sutherland Maxwell
716 Pine Avenue West, Montreal, Canada